Word on the Street

Creating content without clear intent is a waste of your time. If your PR posts don’t have a purpose, don’t help your clients or pose a valuable question then they’re destined to be ignored. It’s time to level up your LinkedIn game!

With over 20 years of experience in the field, Sarah Owen - Founder and CEO of Pumpkin PR - is well acquainted with how to find your voice and use it to connect with journalists, award boards and above all else, your prospects. 

Sarah joins Street Agency’s Founder, Katie Street, to talk PR strategies in a time where your agency may not have much news to share, and the often overlooked need for a link between PR, sales and new business, as well as a rare rant from Katie about LinkedIn’s new ‘stories’ feature...

This episode covers

• Building connections with journalists and the press
• The perceived importance of awards
• Sharing the right posts from the right pages
• Earning trust without face-to-face meetings
• Keeping PR, sales and new biz connected
• Creating focused content with clear intent

Word on the Street is lucky enough to be sponsored by the wonderful team at Just After Midnight who are experts in uptime. Whatever the issue, whatever the time of day, they are supporting your websites and applications 24/7, while your team sleeps. Get a month of support free at: https://www.justaftermidnight247.com/street

Links and references at: https://street.agency/podcast/crafting-pr-with-a-purpose/
Get in touch: [email protected]

Pivot - this simple action seems to have become the word of the year for big brands and agencies. Clients want to pivot, offering new services to stay competitive as the market shifts, which means the need for their agencies to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to innovation and new developments has never been greater than right now!

With her fair share of experience on both sides of the client-agency equation, easyJet’s Head of Proposition Rachael Smith has a comprehensive understanding of what agencies can - and need - to bring to the table through tumultuous times like these, which have shifted the market massively. 

Rachael talks Katie Street through the lesser known adaptations that easyJet have made to stay competitive, how agencies can pitch to brands outside of their typical industry of expertise, and the insights that will stop prospective clients in their tracks to listen to your pitch.

This episode covers

• How agencies help big brands respond to adversity
• Anticipating future developments
• Innovation and pivoting
• Prospecting outside of your area of expertise
• Understanding your prospect’s archetype
• Pitching confidently over Zoom

Word on the Street is lucky enough to be sponsored by the wonderful team at Just After Midnight who are experts in uptime. Whatever the issue, whatever the time of day, they are supporting your websites and applications 24/7, while your team sleeps. Get a month of support free at: https://www.justaftermidnight247.com/street

Links and references at: https://street.agency/podcast/fighting-adversity-with-innovation/
Get in touch: [email protected]

Chocolate. One simple word which - at the right time - can grab your attention, encourage engagement and potentially catalyse a relationship with potential prospects. Proven by the fact that we’ve now captured your attention and intrigue. A man who can explain the method behind the madness is Andrew Nicholson, Co-Founder and CEO of marketing automation platform Kulea. 

With intimate knowledge of email marketing and the minefield your message needs to navigate in order to earn your recipient’s click, Andrew shares with Katie his top tips for engaging with prospects without sounding like you’re pitching. 

We also hear about how to improve the quality of your touch points, and his ‘iPhone test’ that keeps communications short, snappy and (most importantly) successful!

This episode covers

• Improving your business development communications
• Adapting to people’s unconventional home-working hours
• Coping with uncertainty
• Staying out of the spam folder
• How to stand out from other prospect and promo emails

Word on the Street is lucky enough to be sponsored by the wonderful team at Just After Midnight who are experts in uptime. Whatever the issue, whatever the time of day, they are supporting your websites and applications 24/7, while your team sleeps. Get a month of support free at: https://www.justaftermidnight247.com/street

Links and references at: https://street.agency/podcast/staying-out-of-the-spam-folder/
Get in touch: [email protected]

There is no more useful tool for analysis than data - but there is a skill in using the right statistics at the right time to improve your agency’s viability. With experience at EY, PWC and more, Adelphi’s CEO Margaret Manning is adept at finding the figures that could help you fix your finances. Offering even more insight is the Founder and CEO of this series’ fantastic sponsor, Just After Midnight.

We go through the difficulty in delegating and letting go, which functions should come first when you undertake a digital transformation, and cover some of the hidden costs of client acquisition that can often go under the radar!

Episode 3 in this series of Word On The Street also dives into how constraining a timesheet business model can be,  and the utility in keeping your contacts for the long run.

This episode covers

• Defining your optimal client base
• Cost-effectiveness vs economic-effectiveness
• The big step in delegating responsibility
• Hidden costs of client acquisition
• Using the right data at the right time
• The downsides to timesheet models

Word on the Street is lucky enough to be sponsored by the wonderful team at Just After Midnight who are experts in uptime. Whatever the issue, whatever the time of day, they are supporting your websites and applications 24/7, while your team sleeps. Get a month of support free at: https://www.justaftermidnight247.com/street

Links and references at: https://street.agency/podcast/the-power-of-data-to-improve-your-agency-operations/
Get in touch: [email protected]

Planning your social posts has the power to win you a potential client before you’re even in the room with them. As Director of ContentCal, Andy Lambert has first-hand experience in seeing the success that comes from making regular appearances in people’s LinkedIn feeds.

We hear Andy’s insights on the effectiveness of consistent content, growing the confidence to hop in front of a camera and microphone, and why the most important audience is the one you don’t already own yet…

Andy also considers the improvements that can be made to B2B social media feeds, and shares the ONE thing any agency should do to branch out into online content. 

This episode covers

• Using social media to attract new business leads
• Targeting posts B2B as well as B2C
• Understanding your most important audience
• Using each other’s networks to grow together
• Building trust with potential clients
• The importance of regular content

Word on the Street is lucky enough to be sponsored by the wonderful team at Just After Midnight who are experts in uptime. Whatever the issue, whatever the time of day, they are supporting your websites and applications 24/7, while your team sleeps. Get a month of support free at: https://www.justaftermidnight247.com/street

Links and references at: https://street.agency/podcast/perfecting-your-social-media-strategy/
Get in touch: [email protected]

Welcome to the series 2 of Word On The Street! We’ve returned with a whole host of new tips and strategies to help your agency win new business, starting with a very special guest, Head of The Drum Recommends, Cat Hartland. 

In an interesting role reversal, for episode 1, our own Katie Street is quizzed on some of Cat’s stats from The Drum Recommends’ recent survey findings - revealing the trends to watch as we approach the end of 2020 and look towards the new year. And what a turbulent year it’s been…!

Cat also shares post-covid trends in the agency world and reveals the three top things clients look for you to deliver as their brand partner.

This episode covers

• The benefit of experience on both client and agency-side
• Simplifying the conversation with clients
• Understanding client needs
• Acquiring an honest opinion on an agency
• Using reviews to improve
• New trends in the agency landscape

Word on the Street is lucky enough to be sponsored by the wonderful team at Just After Midnight who are experts in uptime. Whatever the issue, whatever the time of day, they are supporting your websites and applications 24/7, while your team sleeps. Get a month of support free at: https://www.justaftermidnight247.com/street

Links and references at: https://street.agency/podcast/emerging-agency-trends-from-2020/
Get in touch: [email protected]

Katie Street has been joined by some of the most compelling guests from agencies and businesses, both local and global, across eleven fascinating episodes. While there are golden rules and top tips for agencies sprinkled throughout every episode, Katie has picked some of her best bits to share in a bite-sized ‘Best Of Series One’ for this final episode!

Hear some of Katie’s closest friends and biggest industry contacts share their interesting stories, expert insights and life lessons in this Series 1 summary of the Word on the Street Podcast.

Word on the Street is sponsored by Just After Midnight, supporting your websites and applications 24/7. They provide managed cloud, 24hr monitoring and support and DevOps. Get a month free here: https://www.justaftermidnight247.com/street

Links & references at: https://street.agency/podcast/best-of-word-on-the-street-series-one/
Get in touch: [email protected]

Starting an agency-client relationship is vital; a good first impression sets the tone for everything you do together. There’s no single solution to getting this right, but a few small tweaks can add up to make a big difference to your pitches and your people.

In episode 11 of Word on the Street, Katie is joined by Head of New Business & Marketing at iCrossing UK, Martina Lacey, who shares some top tips for guiding your agency to success, as well as explaining iCrossing’s ‘One Marketing Team’ concept. They discuss the effectiveness of sharing the responsibility for attracting and pitching to potential clients and employing a mix of short and long term strategies to keep the work coming in.

They also discuss how to persuade new business to buy into the whole team, not just the person responsible for attracting them.

This episode covers

• Sharing the responsibility of attracting new business
• Maintaining a range of tasks to avoid burning out
• Practicing what you preach to clients
• iCrossing’s One Marketing Team system
• Maintaining inquiries through lockdown
• Balancing short and long term acquisition strategies

Word on the Street is sponsored by Just After Midnight, supporting your websites and applications 24/7. They provide managed cloud, 24hr monitoring and support and DevOps. Get a month free here: https://www.justaftermidnight247.com/street

Links and references at: https://street.agency/podcast/kickstarting-client-relationships/
Get in touch: [email protected]

Younger people could be the key to the social media market that agencies can’t afford to neglect. Marketing has become far more digital than ever, and what better way to diversify your team than with the younger generations, who grow up with the internet’s most indispensable tools. 

In episode 10 of Word on the Street, Katie is joined by Anna Bravington, Digital and Community Engagement Manager at GAME, who divulges her experiences on both sides of the agency equation, and the patience she affords prospective clients as a result. She provides tips on the right and wrong ways to ‘pop up’ on LinkedIn, and how a relationship early in your career can pay dividends years down the line.

Anna also muses on the importance of young people’s screen time, and how it provides them with the diverse skill set required for a career in an increasingly digital workplace.

This episode covers

• The best and worst ways to attract new clients
• Keeping in touch with key contacts
• Personalising your prospective pitches
• How constructive feedback can benefit everyone
• Diversifying your skillset
• The benefits of hiring young, tech-smart staff

Word on the Street is sponsored by Just After Midnight, supporting your websites and applications 24/7. They provide managed cloud, 24hr monitoring and support and DevOps. Get a month free here: https://www.justaftermidnight247.com/street

Links and references at: https://street.agency/podcast/how-a-younger-team-could-help-you-attract-more-work-online/
Get in touch: [email protected]

Boost the success rate of your new business team by making small changes to the way you build relationships such as adjusting the role of account managers, allocating innovation leads and encouraging creativity.  

Key messages from Mary Keane-Dawson, Group CEO of TAKUMI, on episode 9 of Word on the Street which delves into an interesting debate on what new business lessons agencies can learn from large tech and finance corporates, including why we should change “Account Managers” to “Customer Success Managers”!

They also assess why influencer marketing can no longer be an “add-on” but is now essential to your new business strategy. 

This episode covers

• New business lessons agencies can learn from tech corporations 
• The value behind Account Managers
• The development of the sales role in agencies
• The commoditization of agencies
• The importance of being helpful and kind
• The rise of TikTok and working with influencers
• How agencies should use social media

Word on the Street is sponsored by Just After Midnight, supporting your websites and applications 24/7. They provide managed cloud, 24hr monitoring and support and DevOps. Get a month free here: https://www.justaftermidnight247.com/street

Links and references at: https://street.agency/podcast/how-to-raise-the-bar-within-your-new-business-team-and-why-influencer-marketing-is-fundamental-to-your-strategy/
Get in touch: [email protected]